Severe shortage of trained sniffer dogs in Mumbai

31 Jan, 2012

Data accessed through the RTI application has shown that the total number of sniffer dogs in service by the various security agencies in the city is merely 70. Out of the 70 dogs in service, 21 belong to the police force-18 with the bomb detection and disposal squad (BDDS) and three with the crime branch while the customs has 4 labradors. All security agencies do not have a facility for dog training. There is a severe shortage of canines used for tracking offenders and sniffing out explosives and narcotics. The sniffer dogs can also be used in fields such as arson detection, underground cable leaks detection, crowd control and detection of hides and bones for wildlife preservation. While the figures of Mumbai are known, there is a need for an increase in the number of trained canines in the country as a whole.